


A Dog's Life

by GloriaMundi



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 5+1 Things, Community: trope_bingo, M/M, Multi, Rivals to Lovers, Scents & Smells, hyperosmia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-29
Updated: 2015-10-29
Packaged: 2018-04-28 16:24:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5097293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GloriaMundi/pseuds/GloriaMundi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Anything might trigger a memory. Something you see: something you hear: even something you smell. Olfactory memories are the hardest to erase."</p><p>Bucky smells Steve. And ... not <i>just</i> Steve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Dog's Life

Out of the blue one afternoon, a memory floods Bucky's mind: it's the fall of 1937 and he's working on the engine of a Model 40. He can feel the grease on his hands (two hands: two sets of fingerprints, fingers, sensations) and the weight of the wrench that he's holding. He can hear the guys talkin' trash about some customer who hasn't paid up. He can see ... 

Memories hit him this way, now. Doctor Banner says it's neurons rebuilding. "Anything might trigger a memory. Something you see: something you hear: even something you smell. Olfactory memories are the hardest to erase."

But why's he thinking of Brozek's all of a sudden? What --

Steve.

Steve's just come in. It must be something about Steve. (Ain't everything? It often seems that way.) Maybe Steve's been messin' with that bike. Maybe there's oil on his hands, or on his shoes.

* * *

Steve buys the cheapest shampoo in the drugstore -- hey, Bucky can relate to that. He still can't get over how many different scents there are these days. Hell, he thought his head would explode the first time he went out on the street with Steve. He could smell _everything_. Perfume, soap, cigarettes, sweat. Must be what it's like to be a dog, the whole world comin' at you through your nose. How the hell did he never notice all the smells when he was the Soldier? Oh yeah: brain damage.

So, Steve's hair smells of lemon most days. (So does Bucky's: he doesn't give a shit about choosing his own toiletries.) But today it smells ... expensive. More like the shampoo Stark uses. (Is it shampoo? Fuck knows what Stark puts on his hair to make it like that. Or his beard.) Yep: maybe Steve's decided to live the dream and get some of the fancy stuff himself. 

* * *

Bucky's starting to take notice of the way Steve smells. No funny business: he just needs to keep an eye on the kinds of memory that might surface. Like, if Steve's been in the gym and someone's taken a swing at him, Bucky steers clear: he knows the smell of Steve's blood too well already, and it makes him think of how he hit --

He doesn't want to think about any of that. He's gotten into the habit of taking long showers, so he can wrap himself up in the smell of cinnamon shower gel and black pepper shampoo. Even the _towels_ have smells, here. Seriously, Stark: more money than sense.

But today Steve smells of ... fuck, of _perfume_ _._ Bucky's learnt that men wear perfume too, nowadays: but this isn't 'cologne', or 'body spray', or any of those other manly things. This is perfume like a dame would wear. It's the perfume that Pepper Potts wears.

"Steve, you dog," says Bucky admiringly. "You been cosying up to Ms Potts?"

Steve blushes, instantaneously and thoroughly. "What -- Bucky, I never --"

"Course not," says Bucky. Oh, he is not gonna let Steve live this down.

* * *

Supersoldier senses can be useful, but how the hell do you switch them off? Bucky honestly does not want to know whether Steve's jerked off that morning. Even if he does it in the shower: that's worse, 'cause Bucky smells it the moment he's in the bathroom. It's worse than back in Brooklyn with their creaky beds (Jesus, so many nights lying there trying not to get hard at the sound of Steve getting off.) 

Today it's somehow ... different. Steve's got off, all right: but there's another layer to the smell. It's almost as though Steve's been with someone.  But Bucky can't smell anything feminine on Steve ... 

"Buck?"

Bucky thinks maybe he shouldn't be following his best friend around their apartment, trying to get a whiff of whatever Steve's been up to. (Or whoever he's been up to it with.) Maybe he's acting like a creeper. 

"Gonna take a shower," he says, not looking Steve in the eye.

"Yeah, you kinda need it," says Steve with a grin, shoulder-checking Bucky as he goes by.  There's a fresh wave of sex-smells, and --

Fucking super-senses.

* * *

Bucky's still not cleared for missions, so when Iron Man and Captain America get back from dealing with some leftover Hydra wannabes, he's right there waiting for them. 

"Steve! What the hell --"

"It's nothing, Bucky. Just -- right here." Steve gestures at his torn lip, where the blood's already drying. "Head wounds, y'know?"

"Well, go and get it seen to," says Stark, helmet under his arm. His suit is streaming water from the decontamination shower. "I'll tell the Red Menace how Captain America got elbowed in the face by a teenaged girl."

Steve, grumbling, heads off to Medical; but Bucky can still smell his blood. (It's different to Stark's. Everyone's blood smells different. Yeah, Bucky's a dog.) Maybe Stark gave Steve a hand. But the smell's warm, like it's on Stark's skin. Which is dumb, 'cause Stark must've been wearing the suit.

"You goin' Winter Soldier on us, Barnes?" says Stark crisply. Bucky notes that he's stepped back a pace.

"Nah," says Bucky. "But you smell of him."

Stark ( _Stark!_ ) blushes. 

* * *

"What?" Steve says, half-laughing. "Do I smell bad?"

"Nah," Bucky told him. "You smell ..." Aw, fuck it. "You smell like you got the hots for someone." 

"You can --" Steve rolls his eyes. "Course you can. If I can, you can." (Which is a typical bit of Rogers logic, i.e. wrong-headed. Bucky lets it go, just this once.) "Fuck. I." He won't look Bucky in the eye. "I didn't ... I didn't want you to find out like this." 

"Find out what?" 

"Me'n'Tony. We --" 

Bucky lets out a noise like an enraged mule. "Stark? Seriously, Steve: _Stark_?!" This has to be the funniest thing he's heard since -- well. Since forever, give or take. Steve's blushing so hard it makes Bucky's face hurt in sympathy. That turned-on smell is layered with sweat now, like Steve's ... like he's scared. 

"Gotta say, pal, you do pick 'em,"  Bucky says, still chortling. "'Course, I never knew you picked guys as well as gals." And if he's a bit ... a bit _put out_ , a bit _disappointed_ , about that -- well, that's his business. He ain't saying a word. 

"I never -- Bucky," says Steve earnestly. He pauses, and Bucky can practically see him inhale. Can _definitely_ see him do a classic double-take, the moment he registers -- 

Well, fuck. _If I can, you can_. Which means Steve can smell him, too. Smell what Bucky's -- well, 'thinking' probably ain't the word. 

"Buck. Look, I might be a million miles from being right, but are you -- I mean --" 

Bucky might be blushing too. And yeah, he's kind of embarrassed. Plus: Stark? Maybe Steve doesn't have the worst ideas. Bucky reckons he could be talked round to that one. 

Steve's still stammering his way towards a sentence. Bucky, generous to a fault, leans in and grabs his shoulder and plants a kiss right on his stupid mouth. 

"Yeah?" says Steve faintly, grinning like an idiot, when Bucky lets him up to breathe. 

Bucky takes a deep breath himself. The way Steve smells is zinging through his blood like whiskey used to do. He sure hopes he's having the same effect on Steve. 

"Yeah," he says " _Now_." 

* * *

So, turns out Stark's sweat (not to mention his other bodily fluids) blends interestingly -- pleasantly -- with Steve's _and_ with Bucky's. Who'd'a thought? 

Not Bucky, that's for sure. 

**Author's Note:**

> [All about hyperosmia! ('an increased olfactory acuity')](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperosmia)
> 
>  
> 
> I have hyperosmia a few days per month. [it's not just me!](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fertile-women-heightened-sense-smell/) It is ... quite unpleasant, mostly. Woof.  
> 


End file.
